Work In Progress: Pia Jacqueline Chandra

What’s up, Snoop Doggy Dogg? With the graduate shows less than a month away, we take a look at the work of Central Saint Martins final year BA Fashion Design with Marketing student Pia Jacqueline Chandra, whose project mainly focuses on mixing the worlds of old and modern high culture. By introducing a certain degree of parody in the representation of masculinity as portrayed in rap culture, the recurrent dominant figures turn into something different, open for new interpretations of what streetswear and couture means. Still, power appears as a central element: a transtemporal possibility to conquer both the restricted spaces and signs of the past and the present-future.

Look at the net worth of Jay-Z: $550 million. Snoop Dogg: $135 million. Kanye West: $130 million. The nouveau riche rappers are now, in fact, depicting the wealth and commodified life that used to be reserved only for a very reduced part of society in the 1950s, one that most likely did not include black culture. So, what would Tupac’ve looked like in Dior’s New Look?